Measles woe slowing down
Measles continues to spread in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, with 466 cases reported in the borough since the outbreak began, but the rate of the contagion is slowing, city health officials said Tuesday.
“We saw 43 cases last week, but, actually, if you look at our curve, we’re actually starting to see a slow decrease in newer cases,” Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, deputy health commissioner, said. “So we have fewer newer cases, meaning that I think we’re starting to see a glimmer of, actually more than a glimmer, the beginning of hope that we’re nearing, you know, a decrease in what we’re seeing with new measles cases.”
Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot called the measles outbreak a “highly localized” danger with 80% of the cases occurring in four Williamsburg zip codes with large populations of Orthodox Jews.
“We want to urge people to remain calm,” Barbot said. “The best way to protect yourself as well as family, friends, neighbors and fellow New Yorkers is to make sure that you are [vaccinated].”
So far, 84 parents have been issued citations for allowing unvaccinated children in public places like parks, schools and playgrounds since the city issued a health emergency in the four zip codes. Twenty-seven of the citations were issued in the past week alone.
Three cases have been identified in the past week outside the Orthodox Jewish community. Those cases occurred in Sunset Park, and involved children who had been granted a religious exemption to attend public school without being vaccinated.
Officials insist they did not attend school while suffering from measles, meaning the danger to others is limited.
The city is launching an aggressive pro-vaccination publicity campaign featuring thousands of robocalls and bus and subway ads in both English and Yiddish, which is the primary language spoken by most Hasidic Jews.
Jewish leaders say they back the city’s effort to fight the disease, including the crackdown. They insist only a small minority of Hasidic Jews resist vaccination.
“The fight over vaccination is with 5% of the population,” said Yosef Rapaport, a media consultant and Yiddish podcaster. “Don’t blame the whole community.”
“The vaxxers and the antivaxxers are in the same community,” he added. “We go to the same synagogues, we go to the same schools, the same weddings.”
The outbreak in the city and in nearby Rockland County, which also has a large community of Hasidic Jews, is the worst in the nation. Across the country nearly 800 cases of measles have been reported, the most in decades.